If you have been keeping tabs on the full college football slate for week 5, you may have noticed a stark contrast in some of the totals from the beginning of the week until now.
Specifically, the Georgia Southern at Coastal Carolina game dropped nearly 10.5 points on Caesars Sportsbook, from 68.5 to now 58. While we can take a look at how and why this number would have taken such a dramatic change at this point in the week, the most likely case is that oddsmakers are taking into account the potential for weather issues stemming from Hurricane Ian.
“It looks like that the Carolinas and Virginia will be impacted the most on Saturday by Hurricane Ian,” said Joey Feazel, lead college football trader at Caesars Sportsbook via Max Meyer. “With Georgia Southern-Coastal, they’ve been hammering Georgia Southern overs recently. But that tempo and passing game, if that’s your gameplan, rain and wind don’t mix with that. With those bigger totals, [people betting this under] really has to do with playing style and whether they like to throw the ball or not, because how this weather affects them most is the passing game.”
Other games that have had interesting drops in their total include Virginia at Duke (56.5 to 49), Virginia Tech vs. North Carolina (57 to 51.5), and Liberty at Old Dominion (49 to 41).
The NFL will potentially be affected by Hurricane Ian, as well. Being as the highly-anticipated Kansas City Chiefs vs Tampa Bay Buccaneers game is set for Tampa on Sunday night, the NFL has already deemed Minnesota’s US Bank Stadium as the alternate site if they opt to move the game due to the hurricane.
While Miami would seemingly be a potential suitor for the Sunday night game, the league ultimately chose Minnesota given that they don’t want to take away any possible relief efforts from the state of Florida. The game would still be played Sunday, with no current plan to push the Chiefs-Buccaneers back a day or two.
“This is only a contingency,” league executive vice president Jeff Miller told ESPN, “but we will remain nimble and adaptable.”
Regardless of how Hurricane Ian affects the sports world, we’re all just hoping that the citizens currently in the path of the storm remain safe throughout the course of the week.
